Sabine Nkusi, who fled Kigali during the genocide, leads initiative aimed at challenging stigma of sexual violence

As a 14-year-old, Sabine Nkusi witnessed the horrors of the genocide against the Tutsi in her home country of Rwanda. Fleeing Kigali with her parents, brother and sister, she saw women lying dead by the road, many who had been the victim of sexual abuse.

She vowed to God that if she survived, she would dedicate her life to trying to give dignity to women who suffered this unspeakable brutality. “I said to God … if I’m ever going to make it out of here … I want to be part of something … a vehicle to end that sort of violence.”

Amazon and Sony among firms that may have sourced coltan, used in phones, from supply chains controlled by the M23 rebels, says Global Witness

Leading global brands including Amazon, Ericsson and Sony are “likely” to have sourced minerals linked to a militia accused of widespread sexual violence, summary executions and torture, a new investigation claims.

The companies allegedly, but unknowingly, acquired coltan smuggled from mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) that are occupied by the M23 militia, which has committed myriad atrocities in eastern DRC.

Modelling from US CDC shows Ebola spread could be on ‘dangerous trajectory’, but experts warn outbreaks can be very hard to predict

Central Africa’s Ebola outbreak could spread to be similar in scale to the worst outbreak in history, west Africa’s 2014-2016 outbreak that killed more than 11,000 people, according to a new analysis by US health officials.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday published a range of scenarios generated by computer models, from 10,000 cases to more than 20,000. In the west Africa outbreak, more than 28,000 cases were reported.

As demand for cobalt, gold and other minerals grows, mining is accelerating deforestation in the Congo basin – and increasing the risk of deadly Ebola outbreaks

For decades after the discovery of Ebolavirus in 1976, outbreaks of the disease were relatively small and contained, affecting a few hundred people at most.

Not any more. In recent years, outbreaks of Ebola have been much larger, affecting thousands and even tens of thousands of people across multiple countries. The 2014 outbreak of Ebola in west Africa infected more than 28,000 people in 10 countries on three continents. The current eruption, which began in early May and shows no signs of abating, has caused 363 confirmed cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and has crossed into Uganda.

Sonia Shah is the author of five books including Pandemic: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond, and writes the newsletter Cross Pollinations on Substack

Islamic State-linked militia blamed for raids in North Kivu as governor says three patients with disease fled clinics

Rebel attacks around a town that is one of the centres of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have left more than 30 people dead over the past few days, complicating the response to the disease.

At least 10 people were massacred in raids on three villages around the city of Beni, in North Kivu, in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says the virus ‘had a big head start’ but that the response was catching up

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo could have begun as early as January, the head of the World Health Organization said, giving the virus “a big head start”.

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also said the response was being hindered by blanket travel restrictions and highlighted high levels of community mistrust and low levels of contact tracing as key concerns.

Cuts in international support threaten the work of the women and men bringing hope to the world’s most vulnerable people

• Jean-Pierre Lacroix is UN under-secretary general for peace operations

At a time when conflicts spill across borders, Am-Dafock – a town built on marshy ground in the far north of Central African Republic – offers a powerful example of why UN peacekeeping matters, even if such successes rarely make international news.

In response to the growing impact of the war in neighbouring Sudan in 2024, the UN peacekeeping mission – known as Minusca – established a temporary base at the border town near Birao to protect displaced and refugee communities and create stability for the delivery of life-saving aid.

Yves Sakila died after being restrained by security guards ‘in broad daylight’

Irish authorities have agreed to a second postmortem on the body of a Congolese man who died after being restrained by shop security guards on a Dublin street, prompting an outcry and comparisons to the death of George Floyd.

A forensic pathologist from England is to conduct an independent postmortem this week on Yves Sakila, 35, an alleged shoplifter who was pursued and pinned to the ground in the city centre on 15 May. The police force, An Garda Síochána, is investigating.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus makes appeal after protests against protocols for handling victims’ bodies in Ituri province

Containing the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo requires community cooperation and is “everybody’s business”, the World Health Organization has said.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the organisation’s director general, made the plea on Sunday during a visit to eastern Congo where some residents have protested against stringent medical protocols for handling victims’ bodies.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus calls for ceasefire, saying no conflict was worth condemning people to death from preventable disease

The deadly Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo can be stopped, the head of the World Health Organization has said, as he arrived in the country to support efforts to contain the disease.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus arrived in Kinsasha on Thursday and was due on Friday to travel to Ituri province in the north-east, where the outbreak was centred.

Medics battling the incurable disease in Democratic Republic of the Congo working in ‘agonising’ conditions

When Dr Vladimir Maduali died of Ebola in the early hours of Sunday morning, he was the fourth member of staff at his hospital to be killed by the disease in as many days. Two days later, his colleague Dr Tibenderana Katho Blaise also died of the disease at the Bunia Evangelical medical centre, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Maduali graduated from the University of Bunia just three years ago and had been working in the Rwampara region, one of the areas of eastern DRC’s Ituri province worst hit by Ebola. The 30-year-old died at Rwampara’s isolation centre, where he had spent two days on oxygen therapy, according to his family.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warns of ‘catastrophic collision of disease and conflict’, as Uganda closes border with DRC

The head of the World Health Organization has called for an immediate ceasefire in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo to help tackle the Ebola outbreak there, as Uganda closed its border with its neighbour in an effort to stop the spread.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted on social media that the region was in the midst of a “catastrophic collision of disease and conflict with the Ebola outbreak in Ituri province outpacing the response”. Tedros said on Monday that he would travel to the DRC this week.

Director general of World Health Organization urges neighbouring countries to take immediate action

The World Health Organization has warned that the Ebola outbreak is outpacing response efforts and countries neighbouring the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are at high risk from the disease.

“We are urgently scaling up operations, but at the moment the epidemic is outpacing us,” said the WHO’s director-general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, as he urged neighbouring countries to take immediate action.

There have been arson attacks on Ebola treatment centres in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, exposing the anger in a region beset by violence linked to armed rebel groups. Authorities say the number of suspected cases of Ebola has passed 900. The World Health Organization has said the outbreak now poses a very high risk for DRC, but that the risk of the disease spreading globally is low

• Suspected Ebola cases in DRC pass 900 as health workers face attacks and shortages

World Health Organization says outbreak poses ‘very high’ risk for Congo, but risk of disease spreading globally remains low

Congolese authorities say that suspected Ebola cases have now passed 900 in the ongoing outbreak in the east of the country.

The Congolese ministry of communication, in a post on X on Sunday, said there were 904 suspected cases and 119 suspected deaths.

Order aimed at preventing spread of Ebola to US affects travelers who have visited three countries in last 21 days

US authorities have temporarily banned green-card holders from entering the country if they have traveled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Uganda or South Sudan in the last 21 days.

The order issued on Friday is part of an expanding attempt to prevent Ebola from entering US borders. A previously announced travel restriction blocked only people without US passports who had visited those countries from entering but exempted US citizens and lawful permanent residents.

New strain of virus, aid cuts, and cultural norms around burials and touch add to difficulties in stemming outbreak

The warnings from aid groups and healthcare workers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been stark, their calls for coordinated international action impassioned.

As the country reels from the return of the Ebola virus, there is growing concern that its fragile healthcare system will struggle to cope with an outbreak that experts say goes well beyond the number of confirmed cases.

Situation described as ‘deeply worrisome’ by officials as aid cuts and community distrust impede responders

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo poses a “very high” risk to the country, the World Health Organization said on Friday, revising its threat assessment upwards.

The outbreak is spreading rapidly, WHO leaders said, with almost 750 suspected cases and 177 suspected deaths, up from 246 cases and 65 deaths when it was first reported a week earlier.

Air France flight en route to Detroit, Michigan, landed in Montreal after virus-related travel restrictions

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An Air France flight headed to Detroit, Michigan, was redirected to Canada on Wednesday after it was determined that a passenger from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) had boarded “in error” amid new Ebola-related travel restrictions, officials with the US Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP) said.

“Due to entry restrictions put in place to reduce the risk of the Ebola virus, the passenger should not have boarded the plane,” a CBP spokesperson said in a statement.

Dr Peter Stafford’s wife and four children are also being monitored for symptoms amid Ebola outbreak in Congo

An American doctor who contracted Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been flown to Germany for treatment, along with his wife and four children, as the World Health Organization warned of the “scale and speed” of the outbreak.

Authorities have reported at least 134 suspected deaths and more than 500 cases of the hemorrhagic Bundibugyo virus, which has no approved treatments or vaccines. The outbreak, which has spread into urban areas, has been declared a public health emergency requiring international response.